Broadway Musicals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Broadway Musicals - Essay Example This display created another layer for people to indulge in and become a part of as they watched this very different style. By the 1940s the musicals of the 1920s had fallen on hard times. Because of the War and the economic times people were not able to pay to see theatre as often. The shows that were more unusual or daring fell by the wayside form lack of audience participation. The reviews that had been so popular because it was a place where new actors were show cased, evolved into vaudeville. Many performers from the old musicals were now doing motion pictures. Major composers were either dead, retired or doing something different. The musicals of the 1920s had crated a formula of fast and furious entertainment without a plot, realism or a good story (Mordden 1999:4). By the 1940s audiences were bored with the old musicals and they were looking for something fresh and different. It is important to note that all the musicals of the 1920s to the 1940s had different formulas that e ncouraged comedy with no real plot. An example, many of the Andy Hardy musicals with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were examples of these. Babes on Broadway was to entertain people and make them happy. It had very little plot. Usually the musical started with a bit musical number that evolved the entire chorus. Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and the team of Rodgers and Hart were producing singable tunes that also had elements of the music from the time -- ragtime, boogie-woogie, jazz and more (Mordden 24).